THE CANNABIS AND PSYCHOSIS CONNECTION QUESTIONED: A COMMENT ON FERGUSSON ET AL. 2005
Addiction April 22, 2005 B Mirken, Mitch Earleywine 10 citations
A critique of a New Zealand cohort study on cannabis and psychosis argues that the study's use of ten items from the Symptom Checklist 90 to assess psychosis is flawed because the items focus heavily on paranoid ideation, which is a known acute effect of marijuana intoxication. The authors did not ask respondents to distinguish feelings while intoxicated from those at other times, nor did they consider that paranoid feelings may be a rational reaction for people using an illegal, socially frowned-upon substance. The daily user group reported an average of less than two symptoms each, raising questions about whether the findings reflect mental illness or normal reactions to intoxication and social context.